


It’s My Own Design (It’s My Own Remorse)

by MercurialTenacity



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abduction, Betrayal, But Also Not As Bad As It Could Be, Captivity, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Grindelwald is not johnny depp, Guilt, Hand Feeding, Identity Issues, Light Drinking, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mental Anguish, Mental Coercion, Mind Control, Mind Rape, Not A Happy Ending, Period-Typical Homophobia, Psychological Torture, Rape, Seraphina Picquery (Briefly/Mentioned), Torture, gratuitous use of pet names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 02:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10350360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialTenacity/pseuds/MercurialTenacity
Summary: In Graves’ more lucid moments it occurs to him just how far he was swept along.  The magnitude of his mistakes.  He'd valued his own discontent so highly.  It's unforgivable.  Maybe he'd accept this hell as penance if it didn't mean Grindelwald was walking into MACUSA every day and doing God only knew what, but he is, and it’s Graves’ fault.Graves wants what is best for the wizarding world, and if that happens to align with some of Grindelwald’s ideas then so be it.  But if it doesn’t – no one walks away from Grindelwald without consequences.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [It's My Own Design (It's My Own Remorse) 咎由自取](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077970) by [jls20011425](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jls20011425/pseuds/jls20011425)



> This is not a happy fic. Please read the tags before proceeding!

Graves stares into his coffee, paperwork laid out in front of him.  It’s the third case this week that he’s referred for sentencing.  Two for Apparating in sight of no-majs, and this one… this one for courting a no-maj.  Breaching Rappaport’s law is a serious crime.  Personal happiness or liberty is, apparently, of no particular consequence.  He stares down at the parchment, picks up his quill, and signs.  He drains his coffee and picks up the next form.

Graves doesn’t let much of his job get to him.  He knows how to separate his profession from his personal feelings.  He doesn’t dwell on things when he goes home at the end of the day – when he isn’t taking the stacks of parchment with him, that is.  You don’t become an auror, don’t become Director of Magical Security, without hearing all about the wrongs of the government and learning to tune it out.

But it wears on him.  Week after week, month after month, doing everything in his power to protect the Statute of Secrecy, whatever the cost.  Never mind that over half the resources of magical law enforcement are tied up in non-violent, non-destructive breaches while the assault on a witch that left her with as yet incurable lesions across her body has gone unresolved for six months, for the simple reason that it occurred behind the privacy of a closed door.  Never mind the countless people living with criminal convictions, unable to find work or stability because of crimes without an actual victim.  He knows the reasoning.  It endangers them all.  But day in, day out, he wonders about the quality of the threat.

He enforces the law, he doesn’t make it.  But enforcing the law is still a choice.

So when a man sits down next to him in the club after work, asks him if he’s heard the ideas on magical law enforcement coming out of Europe, Graves doesn’t decline his company.

And when the man says what a shame it is how harsh American laws are, how very _unnecessary_ it seems, how it’s harder on wizards in the end, Graves nods.

And when the man offers to buy him a drink, he accepts.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Graves isn’t a fool.  Even if he doesn’t look like the man in the papers it doesn’t take long to figure it out.  But it takes long enough, and by the time he’s sure it’s too late.  The thoughts have already built in his head – Grindelwald’s ideas don’t sound nearly so extreme in person, not like the reports and the newspapers make out.  Graves has read the reports.  He’s Director of Magical Security for God’s sake, of course he’s read the reports.  And no, Grindelwald’s methods aren’t gentle.  But neither is Graves.

It makes sense when they talk.  It’s reasonable, calculated, a practical course of action which follows from practical beliefs.  If it all seems a little fuzzier, a little less certain when he thinks about it alone, that fades with time.

By the time it sinks into his mind what he’s thinking about doing it’s already fully formed between them.  How many people has he arrested over his career for the crime of being seen?  How many of them were fined more than they could pay, had their wands snapped, were even put to death on his watch?  When he realizes he can’t count them is when he realizes he was always going to say yes.

It’s a simple plan.  There’s an obscurial in New York, and with MACUSA’s resources Graves will find it.  Grindelwald will use it.  With access to MACUSA’s emergency response protocols, they won’t be able to stop it.  An obscurial would tear the city apart anyway, and the child – no matter what, the child doesn’t have long to live.

He’ll bring files back for Grindelwald.  MACUSA’s safeguards, emergency protocols, personnel lists, anything that reveals the internal structure of the magical government.

It’s simple, but it’s not that it’s easy.  It could never be easy.  He loses countless nights of sleep over it, paces his living room until four in the morning trying to get his head straight.  He tries to talk himself out of it, and once he does he tries to talk himself back into it again.  He tries to reconcile the guilt of the past with the guilt of the future, tries to tell himself that in the end it’s for the best.  He can barely meet Picquery’s eyes in meetings, feels sick at the end of the work day, but it feels inevitable.  He tells himself it’s inevitable.

It tears him up inside, but he still gathers the files.  They make a neat pile on his desk.  Half of them were in his office to begin with, and no one asks a single question.  He tucks them into his briefcase at the end of the day along with the rest of the paperwork he always ends up taking home with him and walks out the front door.

He sets the briefcase on the table.  Doesn’t look at it.  Grindelwald will be here this evening to collect it.  _Grindelwald_.  The darkest wizard of the age and Graves is going to hand over the keys to the American government to him.

He’d been at school with Seraphina.  She was brilliant, driven, she always had been.  The world had been so clear to her.  She made difficult decisions, impossible decisions, but she always had a clarity and a certainty that she had done the right thing.  Considered all the options, acted for the best.  He admires her for it.  He’s going to destroy her.  He may not have friends in the typical sense, but he has a camaraderie at MACUSA, people he works with and trusts, respects.  People who trust him.

He’s not a man of indecision.  He’s not a man who leaves when things get rough.  Once he undertakes to do something he sees it through.  He’s not a man who lets sentiment stop him from doing what must be done.  There’s no doubt in his mind that the Statute of Secrecy has outlived its useful purpose.  But this… how many wizarding deaths will be on his hands then?  People who trusted him to protect them.

And he can’t.  His resolve breaks under the strain of a month without sleep, constant indecision and guilt, and maybe the state of the world is hell but this can’t be the way.  If he were a better man, a stronger man, maybe he would have gone through with it or maybe he never would have considered it, but it’s all too late for that now.  He’ll burn the files, he can’t risk taking them back through the streets.  And he’ll tell Picquery.  He has to.  He goes to the mantle, takes a pinch of Floo powder and leans down to stick his head in the grate.  He’ll lose his job.  Hell, he’ll be arrested.  It doesn’t matter.

“Office of Seraphina –”

The curse hits him from behind, and he’s unconscious before he hits the ground.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

When he comes to he’s bound on his living room floor.  There was no great duel.  He hadn’t even realized the man was in his house.

“Such a disappointment.”

Graves looks up to see Grindelwald standing above him, leafing through the classified MACUSA documents Graves left on the table.  His head is throbbing, likely less from the curse and more from falling.

“I had such hopes for you.”  Grindelwald snaps the folder shut, kneels down to Graves’ level.  “You’re a powerful man.  You had conviction.  You could have changed the world.  But now…”  Grindelwald’s eyes flick down the length of his body, taking in the lengths of rope coiled around him.  “Well.  You needn’t worry about your legacy in any case.  Everyone will still think of you as a man with vision.”

Graves glares up at him, testing his bonds, unable to do much more.  He doesn’t know what Grindelwald is talking about, and he isn’t sure if he wants to.  But he knows whatever happens next is his fault.

“You have made my task much more complicated, darling.  Much more painful for you.”  Graves manages to contain his flinch as Grindelwald’s wand traces over his cheek.  “Are you sure you did the right thing?”

Grindelwald watches his face, smiles when he must realize that Graves isn’t.  Being tied up on the floor doesn’t particularly ingratiate Grindelwald to him, certainly makes him less inclined to agree with anything he says, but… he’s more sure that he couldn’t do it, than that he shouldn’t have.

“No matter now.  I don’t think I’ll be able to trust you again after this.  But in the months ahead…”  Grindelwald leans in close, until Graves can feel his breath on his ear.  “I want you to remember that this was your choice.”

There’s no warning.  One moment Grindelwald’s lips are to his ear, and the next the tip of his wand is to his chest.

“ _Crucio!_ ”

Graves has been tortured before.  He’s been an auror a long time, he’s been in some bad spots.  He knows how to handle intimidation, interrogation, pain. 

This isn’t pain.  This is hell.

Every nerve is burning, seared through with the full force of Grindelwald’s hatred, his passion, his fanaticism, coursing through his body.  The agony whites out the rest of the world, Graves can’t breathe, can’t think.  It goes on, on, on until he forgets why it’s happening, forgets where he is.  His body is pain, he’s made of it, consumed by it, exists for it.

It takes a long time to notice when the pain begins to ebb.  It lingers in his body, dancing through him in unceasing waves and he doesn’t know if it will ever fade.  His body doesn’t seem connected to anything.  It’s separate from his mind in a way that makes it difficult to figure out where it is in space.  Someone’s hands are on him.  On his neck, his face.  Each touch, each movement, sends aftershocks of pain shooting through him.

“Oh, dearest, look at you.”  The voice is soft, gentle.  “Wouldn’t you like to feel better?”

Graves can’t keep thoughts in his head.  Each time he tries they slip away again like so much water.  He would like to feel better, he… he… he makes a noise somewhere in the back of his throat, can’t control his lips well enough to make words.

“I know.  I know, my dear.”

There’s a hand supporting the back of his head, fingers brushing over his face.

“ _Imperio._ ”

It’s the most incredible feeling.  A lifting warmth spreading through him, smoothing away the agony left in his muscles.  It feels so good.  But it… it’s not right somehow.

 _Shush, dearest,_ whispers the gentle voice, inside his head now.

But he… he still isn’t sure, there’s some part of him that says no, says he can’t let this happen.

_So much easier to just give in to me.  To let yourself relax._

It would be easier.  And hadn’t that been what he was planning to do, before…

_Before you got those silly ideas in your head, yes.  So much better to let go, my dear._

It would be better, wouldn’t it?  Just to slip away into the floating warmth, away from the pain and the anger and the regret…

_That’s it.  Yes, that’s it._

It feels nice, just to float and let the gentle words echo in his head.

_You’re going to write a letter for me.  You’re going to write to that office of yours and say that you’re ill.  And then you and I are going to spend the next few days getting to know each other so very, very well._

It sounds like a wonderful idea.  So that’s what he does.  It’s in his handwriting, bares his signature, and he seals the envelope himself.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

It’s like waking up after being asleep for a long time, or reaching the surface of a deep lake.  It’s like being in bed on a Sunday morning, everything warm and soft, so comfortable just to stay… but it’s slipping away, like the covers being pulled back and the cold seeping in, aches coming back to his body, the deep impressions of bruises where his body convulsed against the ropes when Grindelwald…  dear God.  Oh dear God, Grindelwald.

Graves is tied to the headboard of a bed – the guest bed, he notes.  He’s in his shirtsleeves, wrists affixed to either bed post, and when he looks around he’s sitting on the end of the bed.

No, that can’t be right.

He can’t possibly be sitting on the end of the bed, because he’s tied to the headboard.  He closes his eyes, breathes deeply though it makes his chest ache, and when he looks again he – the him on the end of the bed – is shimmering, shifting, the likeness fading.

“Do you like it?”

“Go to hell.”  His voice is rough, throat raw.  From screaming, his mind supplies.

“Don’t you like what you see?”  Grindelwald is moving to sit beside him, rests a hand on his chest.  “But you’re so lovely, dearest.”

Graves grits his teeth, looks straight ahead.  He has no idea what twisted game Grindelwald is trying to play, but he will take no part in it.  Not – not anymore.

“Don’t you see what happens now?  The Director of Magical Security is going to pass information to Grindelwald, in order to start a war in New York City.  Just as we’d planned.  But it looks like I’ll have to play both roles, won’t I?”

Graves keeps his face a mask, but his mind is racing.  That can’t be possible.  What is Grindelwald going to do, impersonate him at the office every day?  He has the sudden, absurd thought of Grindelwald sitting in his office surrounded by mountains of overdue paperwork, frantically trying to work out shift assignments and respond to Seraphina’s increasingly impatient inquiries into Canadian border regulations.

Sitting in on classified meetings.  Organizing the entire security network for MACUSA and New York City.

And then it doesn’t seem so absurd.

There must be some change in his face, some indication of his thoughts, because Grindelwald smiles.  “That’s right.”  He’s tracing slow little circles into Graves’ chest, and it makes his stomach turn.  “But in order to play my role, I’m going to need something of yours.  Some piece of you, hm?  Will you share with me?”

Graves doesn’t know what to think, struggling to come up with any way to stop this thing he’s started.  It’s a horror show and it’s his fault.  What does Grindelwald mean, some piece of him? He can transfigure himself, he just had, there's no reason he should have to use polyjuice potion.

“Your memories, dear.  We must be convincing.”

Graves’ blood runs cold.

“Will you let me have them, or must I take them?”

“You can try.”

Grindelwald leans in close to him, puts a hand on his cheek, hisses into his ear, “You will remember, once I’ve broken you, that this was what you chose.   Won't you?”

Graves spits at him, tries to draw up his magic even without a wand – he's a powerful wizard, and it wouldn't exactly take finesse to blast Grindelwald backwards off the bed – but he never gets the chance. The Cruciatus Curse hits him before he can so much as summon a spark, and his world dissolves into white hot pain once again.

He can feel Grindelwald probe at his mind.  Every time the pain stops it's there, seeking an opening, seeking entrance.

But Grindelwald has tried pain once already, and Graves is damned if he’s going to let it break him a second time.  He holds the walls around his mind, clings to them with everything he has.  Even when he doesn’t remember why, barely knows what it is he’s fighting, when he’s a screaming, sobbing mess on the bed, he holds onto himself.

He has no idea how long it goes on.  The pain, the pressure on his mind, and the pain again.  He loses consciousness at some point, and Grindelwald must think there’s little point in torturing a man dead to his senses because when he wakes again he’s alone.

The sun is lighting up his curtains.  They’re a lovely shade of blue, he’d bought them just last month.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, thoughts disorganized and feverish.  Eventually he becomes aware of Grindelwald beside him, pressing a glass to his lips.

“Drink my dear.”

Graves isn’t in a fit state to protest, throat burning and barely able to turn his head anyway.  As soon as the water touches his tongue he feels the tendrils snaking into his mind again, and in that moment he understands that it’s not the pain which will damn him.  It’s the relief.

He throws his walls up, weak but enough, and spits the water from his mouth with as much of a snarl as he can muster.

Grindelwald’s hand is stroking through his sweat damp hair.  “How long must we do this?  It’s going to happen.”  His grip on Graves’ hair tightens, one finger strokes down his temple.  “I will slip inside your mind, rifle through your memories taking what I need, and by the end of it I will know you better than you know yourself.”

Graves groans, tries to pull his head away and fails.  Grindelwald’s finger taps his cheek.

“But we can play first, if you like.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

It takes hours more, maybe days, Graves has no way of knowing.  He’d like to think it matters.  He’d like to think he fought to the end, fought with the skill and resolve a man of his position should.  But it comes to the same result.

Grindelwald unbinds him and he sags onto the bed, unable to hold himself upright.  He’s breathing laboriously, every breath like a knife through his chest.  Grindelwald lays him out on the bed, presses a cool washcloth to his forehead.  He lays alongside him, cradles him, tells him soothingly how well he’s been fighting, that he can relax, that it’s all right now.  He’s gentle enough that Graves doesn’t notice the tendrils of Grindelwald’s will curling into his mind until _he’s twelve again, catching frogs in a field with his brother._

It’s a happy memory, a warm summer day in childhood, and he smiles.

“That’s right darling.  Doesn’t that feel good?”

So it starts like that.  Little memories, happy ones, things that hardly matter but are so vivid, so nice to think about.  His father’s cooking.  His seventeenth birthday.  A perfect test score in arithmancy.

And then more.  Being kissed by a girl in fifth year.  Getting accepted to train as an auror.  His brother’s wedding.  The night Seraphina was elected.

A sequence of memories play through his head like a film, one after another, his life running past his eyes in an out of order collage.  He can feel Grindelwald guiding his thoughts, taking him from one memory to the next, but it’s a background awareness to the scenes playing out before him.

He tries to fight again when he finds himself unlocking his office, in a briefing with Seraphina, but it’s far, far too late.  Every wall he tries to raise is torn through like so much tissue paper, and he feels the strength of Grindelwald’s will twisting into his mind.

By the time it’s through is mind is bruised, battered.  Grindelwald hadn’t been gentle.  He’d had no need to be.  He leaves him like that, eventually, thoughts disorganized and memories rising to the surface to float through his mind.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

He learns to mark the time by Grindelwald’s visits.  In the morning before work, and then afterwards, either to extract any relevant memories or just… to play.  He tries to keep track of the days, but the numbers get twisted in his head along with everything else, until he can’t remember if he counted seven, seventeen, or seventy.  Each time Grindelwald flips through his mind like a picture book it’s a little harder to slot everything back in place afterwards.

Grindelwald doesn’t need curses anymore, not once he’s inside Graves’ mind.  He digs in deep, has his pick of horrors to drag to the surface.  The assignment Graves failed, and the woman who died screaming because of it.  His mother’s funeral.  The hex that split open his chest, left him bleeding out alone in an alley.  The argument with his brother, and the two decades of silence that followed.  So there’s really no need for the Cruciatus Curse.

Grindelwald doesn’t even bother to keep him restrained anymore.  It’s not like he can get out of the room.  He tried, dragged himself to the door and threw everything he had against it, his magic, his body, his fists, until he collapsed in front of it unable to stand.

Grindelwald had walked in, tutted at him, dragged him back onto the bed, and found the time he’d lost three of his aurors to traffickers in Brooklyn.

Grindelwald leaves him like that sometimes, glassy eyed and staring at the ceiling while his memories play on repeat, watching people he cares for die again, again, again.

If he cooperates, doesn’t fight, then he’s being promoted, taking a woman to the fair, staying up too late on a Tuesday evening to finish a novel.  It’s a choice between obeying and going mad, and it’s easy to make.

In his more lucid moments it occurs to him just how far he was swept along.  The magnitude of his mistakes. He's an idiot. He'd valued his own discontent so highly. His twisted sense of loyalty, and to what, exactly? How completely fucked his department would be if each of his aurors followed their personal moral convictions over their duties, and he'd thought he was exceptional. It's unforgivable.  Maybe he'd accept this hell as penance if it didn't mean Grindelwald was walking into MACUSA every day and doing God only knew what.  At first he tries to gauge the scope of the catastrophe, tries to get Grindelwald to tell him what's happening at MACUSA.  It's futile, a laughable attempt.  Grindelwald tells him whatever he wants to, without regard for whether it makes sense from one day to the next.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

No, not that.  Please God, not that.  He thrashes helplessly in Grindelwald’s control, and the more he struggles the more intently Grindelwald steers him towards the memory.

_He’s twenty three.  He’s met a man in a bar and he likes his smile, likes the cut of his suit._

_Three months later they’re playing cards.  Percival is refilling his glass.  They’re drunk, tipsy anyway, laughing a little too much and a little too loud._

_“And then – and then you know what he said?  What he said when I showed him?”_

_Percival is doubled over with laughter, caught on the sound of his voice and the shape of his words.  “What, Wes, spit it out!”_

_“He said ‘not this goblin!’  You get it?  Because he’s a goblin!”  Wesley downs the rest of his drink, grins at Percival like it’s the story of his life.  It probably wouldn’t be funny if they were sober, but they’re not, and it’s hilarious._

_Eventually Percival gets his breathing under control, meets Wesley’s eyes over the bottle between them, holds his gaze until his chest aches._

_He doesn’t think, just reaches for the lapels of his jacket and ducks his head in._

_“Percy – Percival, good God man, get ahold of yourself.”  Wesley shoves hard at his chest, sends Percival stumbling backwards wide eyed.  Wesley picks up the bottle, sets it back on the shelf.  “I think that’s quite enough of that for one night, don’t you.”_

_The levity from only a moment ago is gone, vanished from the room with a terrible silence in its place._

_“Wes, I –” Percival steps forward but Wesley steps back, hands up to hold him off._

_“It is the drink, of course.”  It’s not a question, but it is._

_“I – yes, yes of course it’s the drink.  What did you think, Wes?”  Percival laughs, a hollow, desperate sound.  “I’m not – I’m not like_ that _, come back and finish the hand.”_

_Wesley gives him a careful, measured look._

_“I don’t think we have compatible interests, Mr Graves.”_

_Percival stands there, panic and horror building in his chest, lost for words.  Wesley circles around him, collects his hat and coat._

_“I’ll show myself out.”_

Graves can feel Grindelwald’s satisfaction, his delight.  He closes his eyes, doesn’t have the strength to fight back the tears.

“You wanted it, all those years ago.  You wanted that boy.  Did you ever get it, I wonder?  Not him, no, you never saw him again, but another one perhaps.  No?  Oh, my dearest, my sweet thing.”

Grindelwald leans in until Graves feels his breath on his lips, strokes his cheek and brushes back his hair, hands running over his chest and neck.  Graves tries to turn his head away when he first feels Grindelwald’s tongue on his lips, but he catches Graves’ chin easily and holds him in place.  Grindelwald eases his mouth open and licks in deep, possessive, and oh so gentle.  Graves can’t help the sob that escapes him when Grindelwald’s hand slips down the front of his pants.

“No – no, please…”

“I’ve taken everything from you, my pet.  Why not let me have this?  It seems only right that I should know you fully.  It might be important at the office, hm, knowing just how Director Graves sounds when he’s being fucked.  What do you think, dear one?  And it’s not in your memories, no, I’ll have to find out for myself.”

Graves twists helplessly under Grindelwald’s weight, can do nothing to hold him off.

Grindelwald digs into his mind, searches out every fantasy he’s let play out in the shower and twists them, twists until he’s moaning into Wesley’s mouth, pressing into his hands as they unbutton his shirt, pressing his hips up to meet Theseus’.  And he knows it’s Grindelwald, he does, but he forgets.  It doesn’t feel important, not when Theseus Scamander is undressing him.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Graves can’t tell what’s a memory, what’s a dream, and what’s real.  There’s no boundary anymore, no way to be sure.  He can puzzle some of it out by logic – he couldn’t possibly have ridden a dragon when he was seven – but most of it is harder.  Had he always wanted to be an auror?  Did he have a dog as a child?  When had he learned to Apparate?

It’s hard to remember who he is exactly, when he can’t properly recall the events of his life.  Some have gotten mixed together, combined until he can’t sort out the pieces from each other.  And some are gone, little gaps his mind skips over like a crack in the sidewalk, little holes left from when Grindelwald was a little too careless, or when Graves tried a little too hard to hold on only to have it ripped from him anyway.  Better by far to let it go, to keep the remainder of his mind intact.  He can’t quite think beyond the bounds of the room, but he may still need it yet.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

“Good morning, love.”

Graves opens his eyes slowly, blinks in the sunlight filtering through the curtains.  Had he been asleep?

He flinches when Grindelwald touches him, but makes no move to get away.  Grindelwald pulls Graves up until he’s propped against his chest, head tipped to rest on his shoulder.  Grindelwald has a plate of bread, a glass of water.  Graves is dimly aware that this should be embarrassing, humiliating even, but he doesn’t know why.  It’s become a ritual, or at least Graves thinks it has.  He can’t keep track of when exactly it happens, but he feels like it’s happened many times before.

Grindelwald presses the little bites of bread against his lips, and Graves opens his mouth for them.  They’re soft, easy to chew, they don’t taste like much but Graves has long since forgotten to care.  Grindelwald’s fingers are soft against his lips, and he whispers into Graves’ ear.

“There you are dear one, hush.  What would you do without me, hm?  Without me to take care of you.  For someone with such an _important_ position, how did you ever manage?”

Grindelwald holds the glass to his lips, lets him take little sips.  When they’re though Grindelwald sets the dishes aside, lays him down again, climbs on top of him and pets through his hair.

“Aren’t you grateful to me, pet?  Well?”

Graves may not always know where he is, he may not remember his grandfather’s name or when exactly he met this man, but he knows something about Grindelwald’s words feels wrong.  He isn’t sure if he should be, but he doesn’t think he’s grateful.

“…no.”

“What did you say?”  Grindelwald’s hand tightens painfully in his hair, draws his head back to bare his neck, and Graves moans.  The honey tone is vanished from Grindelwald’s voice, leaving fury and contempt.  “What did you say, _pet?_ ”

“I… I…no?  Yes…”  Graves can’t remember the right answer, can barely remember what it was he said, his head is filled with fog and he isn’t sure what’s going on.

Grindelwald’s face twists with distain.  He grabs the half full glass back from the nightstand and upends it over Graves’ face, soaking him and the pillow under his head.  Graves gasps and sputters, and the tip of Grindelwald’s wand is pressed to his forehead.

“You will be.”

Graves falls backward into darkness until _he’s sitting in a hospital waiting for his mother to die, he’s reading a newspaper and the headline is_ WAR, _he’s an auror and a man lies dead at his feet for the first time and God, God, he would beg if he could remember the words._

 

\----------------------------------------

 

“How was your day, pet?”

Graves doesn’t answer.  _He’s out with a group of other men, all celebrating the successful completion of their auror exams._

_The restaurant is dimly lit and the table sports several bottles of Champaign, laughter echoing late into the night.  He’s been through training with these men, they’ve gotten to know each other well, and Percival isn’t usually one to be out on the town but tonight is an exception._

_He can hear the up-tempo music from the band, smiles at Davis’ boisterous retelling of how he’d passed the disguise portion…_

Grindelwald strokes under his jaw, presses a soft kiss to his lips.  Graves blinks.  He looks around, eyes starting to focus, mind still hazy as the images recede.

“There you are.  I’ve had a long day, pet, and I’m in the mood to relax.  Will you relax with me?”

Graves nods dazedly.  He isn’t quite sure where he is, blinks again to clear the thoughts drifting through his head.

“Good, dearest.  Who would you like tonight, hm?”

“Theseus,” Graves rasps, throat dry.  Grindelwald knows everything about him, everything from how he takes his coffee to how he likes to be touched – and by whom.  Things he won’t even admit to himself, keeps locked away in his head.  Kept locked away, until Grindelwald pried open his mind.  It’s almost easier.  There are no secrets now, no hiding.

Grindelwald is kissing him again, a hand twining into his hair and stroking down his side, and Graves smiles under Theseus’ touch.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

The door opens, but it isn’t Grindelwald.  It’s a group of men, wands out and alert, whose shocked gazes fall on him.  Aurors, Graves thinks.  They’re talking urgently.

“Dear God, it’s him.”

“Director?  Director Graves?”

“Is the rest of the house clear?

“We have a perimeter.”

There has never been a group of aurors in his room.  Only Grindelwald comes in his room.

“This never happened,” Graves says to the ceiling.  If it hadn’t happened, then it must be a dream.  Or maybe one memory mixed with another.  He certainly has been around groups of aurors before, so it isn’t unreasonable.  He doesn’t see the point of this one though.

“Director, can you hear me?”

One of the aurors is crouching next to the bed, on eye level with him.  Graves looks at him bemusedly.  It doesn’t feel like a memory, in memories he knows what comes next.  He’s not usually in his room.  Maybe it is Grindelwald, then.  Grindelwald is the only one who comes in his room.  He frowns.  “You don’t look like me.”

“Get the medi-wizard here, now.”

“Do you think he’s Confunded?”

“God knows.  Oh Christ, somebody tell the president.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until we know…?”

“She said immediately, Johnson.”

It takes a while for Graves to realize that if it’s not a memory and it’s not a dream it just might be real.  There might actually be aurors in his room, the medi-wizard might actually be examining him, and Grindelwald might not actually be there.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Lying in the hospital ward, watching people come and go, he wonders when he’s going to be arrested.  It had been explained to him what Grindelwald did, and though he hadn’t succeeded, Graves was responsible for it.  He knew exactly what he’d done.  But the people who see him only act relieved.  He’s allowed very few visitors, a fact for which he’s grateful, but the handful of his aurors who see him, the medics, all say things like _very good to have you back, Mr Graves,_ and s _o glad to have our Director back,_ and _hoping you recover well, sir._   It’s when he overhears a nurse talking about the epic duel between him and Grindelwald that he realizes.  They don’t know.

They don’t know that he held the doors of MACUSA wide open, that he betrayed them all.  Yes, most of the officials know that he didn’t duel Grindelwald in the streets, but even they don’t seem to realize the actual events of which he was a part.  The knowledge sinks like ice into his chest, and he closes his eyes.

Time is still uneven, flowing through his head in surges.  He doesn’t always know where he is when he wakes up, thinks he’s back under Grindelwald’s control or in his dormitory at Ilvermorny.  Everything in his head is muddied.  He doesn’t quite know how long he’d been there, but he doesn’t think it’s long before Seraphina comes to visit him.

The nurse shows her in and she stands by his bed, lips tight with a concern she so rarely shows.  He looks up at her, barely hears when she speaks.

He doesn’t remember the day Seraphina won the election.  But he remembers the day he betrayed her.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at mercurial-tenacity.tumblr.com! :)


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